Great Rock Albums of the 70s: The Eagles- Hotel California

The Eagles are normally thought of as an easy listening band, mainly due to their countryfied sound. Throughout the seventies, they were able to cross over to both the country and pop charts with songs like “Lying Eyes,” “Tequila Sunrise” and “Take Me to the Limit.” The same can be said for this album because the single “New Kid in Town” hit number 43 in the country charts and number 2 in the pop charts. Therefore, it is no surprise that they have been labelled easy listening or country rock.

So if this band is considered easy listening, why did so many hard rockers like me go out and buy this album. The answer to this is simple, The Eagles can rock and tracks like “Life in the Fast Lane” and “Victim of Love” are testimony to this. But it’s not just these tracks, the title track itself was able to offer something that listeners of different musical genres could identify with. It also helped that back in the 70s, people weren’t as quick to categorise music like they do now. For me, it was that unique opening guitar riffs to the just hard enough rock melody throughout the middle to the cranking guitar solos at its finale. As a impressionable teenager back then, I watched a video of Hotel California and was totally blown away at the way lead guitarists Joe Walsh and Don Felder went back and forth trading guitar solos. I wonder if the metal bands who had dual lead guitarists who traded off solos got the idea here.

Track Listing:

1. Hotel California

2. New Kid in Town

3. Life in the Fast Lane

4. Wasted Time

5. Wasted Time Reprise

6. Victim of Love

7. Pretty Maids All in a Row

8. Try and Love Again

9. The Last Resort

The Eagles:

Don Felder: guitar, vocals, keyboards

Glen Frey- guitar, vocals, keyboards, piano

Don Henley- drums, vocals, keyboards

Randy Meisner- bass, vocals

Joe Walsh- guitar, slide guitar, vocals, keyboards

Another thing this album has in common with heavy metal of the 80s is that it has been accused of being satanic. Someone somewhere associated some of the lyrics of “Hotel California” with death and drew the conclusion that that was what the song was about. For me, I don’t waste my brain cells thinking about that. I just like listening to the great music it has to offer.

I am going on holiday for a week and when I return, the next post will be KISS- Destroyer